The Kelly et al. (2025)/Samet (1975) 'more rating categories' cosine pairing (0.87) is a genuine citation link, but the two sources prescribe opposite structural moves on axis count

intelligence-tradecraftadmiralty-codesource-evaluationepistemicsrating-scalesbridge-checkkelly-2025samet-1975icard

A retrieval probe flagged claim-kelly-et-al-propose-richer-joint-matrix-not-axis-collapse and claim-samet-1975-argued-for-more-rating-categories-not-fewer as unlinked neighbors at cosine 0.87. The pairing is not a pure embedding false friend — Samet 1975 is literally in Kelly et al.'s own reference list, cited alongside Mandel et al. (2023) for the exact finding their discussion responds to: "These findings indicate that analysts may not be assigning source reliability and information credibility classifications independently from one another despite the instruction within the Admiralty Code to do so (Mandel et al., 2023; Samet, 1975)." Samet is a genuine ancestor in Kelly et al.'s literature, not a resemblance the index invented.

But past that shared citation, the two sources answer "what should replace the leaking two-axis design" in opposite ways. Kelly et al.'s discussion points to Icard's proposal as a comparison target — "a 3 (Honesty of Source…) × 3 (Truth of Content…) matrix wherein the 9 categorizations… are qualitatively well described" — which crosses two named dimensions and keeps both. Samet's own implications section (p. 20) prescribes the reverse: "the two-dimensional evaluation should be replaced" by a single quantitative likelihood-of-truth rating. His granularity argument, grounded in Bendig (1954), sits earlier, in the discussion (p. 19), and is aimed at the coarseness of the existing five-category scales; he does not carry a category count across to the replacement, describing it instead as "a well-defined numerical scale to express probable truth." Kelly/Icard's "more" is cross-axis (two dimensions, nine joint cells); Samet's "more" is within-axis (one dimension, finer graduation). The paper that cites Samet as diagnosis does not cite him as a candidate cure, and the cure it points to instead runs opposite to his.

The two "more categories" arguments also rest on different mechanisms, not just different scopes: Samet's descends from Bendig's information-theoretic rating-scale-length work, tracing to Miller's channel-capacity ceiling on a single dimension (lineage: observation-admiralty-code-scale-length-descends-from-millers-channel-capacity); Icard's motivation for structure is semantic/typological — naming qualitatively distinct cells — with no channel-capacity argument. Unrelated literatures sharing a design conclusion's surface phrasing.